‘Humans’ are not the problem.
Many humans all around the world live in ways that are sustainable and respectful to the land they live on, and through most of human history that was how we all lived. The last couple thousand years is a blip in the time humans have been on this earth.
Constantly I see people who live in urbanized, industrialized places, within a colonial country, and have learned those ways – will turn around and say that it is just human nature and will go on to compare humans (as a totalizing group) to parasites trying to kill their host. This kind of misanthropy is a dead end and a trap that naturalizes colonialism and destruction and by making it simply part of who we are it creates the illusion that we can not be anything else. That we will always destroy, always kill, and always colonize, so we may as well not even try. The argument is not only a self prophesying dead end, that nullifies other possibilities it is also an ahistorical argument.
Giving up is the easy way out. It is escapist and removes all and any responsibility. Meanwhile, there is animals being vivisected and slaughtered, there is burial grounds being built on, old growth forests being clearcut, pipelines being pushed through sensitive ecosystems, women (especially native women) going missing or being found dead, more prisons being built, and all kinds of other shit going on that needs our energy and demands we take responsibility. Things some may personally benefit from do to our privileges but that future generations of humans and other animals as well as plants will need – and may not be able to live without if we don’t do something about this shit
Humans are not the problem
by Comrade Black
Unfortunately, during that ‘blip’ in human history humans have rendered as many species of life and their habitat-ecosystems extinct so as to rival all the other mass extinction in the geological record. So, while I get you’re point, and of course people should always try to do better, I kind of think humans ARE the problem.
Even the so-called ‘primitive’ societies living more sustainable lifestyles often show signs of developing destructive practices; the development of agriculture itself has a crucial role in deforestation and continues to do so to this day. Trying to feed 8 billion people on a planet whose ecological world system developed to sustain a few hundred million at most is always going to be a recipe for catastrophe, not just for them but for every other life form we share it with.
It’s a pretty heavy burden to do what often seem like triage for things that seem to be lost causes, but that just makes them more epic and worthwhile, and that much more significant when they are turned around. And many of them can be. We could stop abusing animals right now if we all wanted to. We could stop deforesting right now if we all wanted to. We could stop overpopulating right now if we all wanted to. We could turn around endangered species right now if we all wanted to. It’s just a matter of will, education, and cooperative effort.
I really liked your post but I still kind of think – just for the sake of accuracy in language – that humans are the problem. Athough at the same time, some people work toward solutions as well. That is the hope anyway.
Thanks for the great comment Neil. I appreciate it, and that you took the time to read this. Ian over at Uncivilized Animals also just recently wrote a very similar post.
And you are right, clearly humans are related to all the problems we face today – my point though is, that it is not the fact we are ‘human’ which causes those problems. It is more complex than that. What I am trying to address is the quick fix easy answers that often obscure the actual causes of problems rather than seek to address them